[HN Gopher] Hiroshi Nagai: Japan's Sun-Drenched Americana
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Hiroshi Nagai: Japan's Sun-Drenched Americana
Author : neom
Score : 171 points
Date : 2024-12-01 20:53 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tokyocowboy.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tokyocowboy.co)
| evanjrowley wrote:
| A lot of Tetsuro Yamashita's album covers use this illustration
| style:
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=RDEMliH6yv_-S5Z3VNUdGlcyfA...
|
| Apart from the visual aesthetic, english lyrics and music genre
| are also a big sign of American influence.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Interesting, a Japanese view of old America. I think I can see a
| bit of Japanese influence in the paintings. I think the paintings
| are quite good and end up being nostalgic.
| enriquto wrote:
| The one with the rectangles representing reflections in the
| water is incredible. You can track each strip of rectangles to
| a city feature, and they are subtly different, in a way that
| makes sense.
| flymaipie wrote:
| I discovered city-pop through vaporwave genre. Initially, I
| thought these stylish Japanese album covers were contemporary and
| inspired by vaporwave - turns out it was the other way around!
| The original 80s city-pop aesthetic actually influenced
| vaporwave's visual style decades later.
| jorisboris wrote:
| Hiroshi Nagai is the first time I felt art resonate with me
|
| All of a sudden I appreciated art!
| bool3max wrote:
| You've never resonated with a movie, a song, or a TV episode?
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Can't say this is the only piece of art I've appreciated, but
| there's definitely something deeply nostalgic about his work.
| It's almost an idealized version of my childhood.
| jordanb wrote:
| Should not surprise you on this forum. Many such examples.
|
| Why do you think there is so much excitement about AI art?
| monadINtop wrote:
| Oh my god I thought I was the only one that noticed this.
| People stereotype science and math people as being anti-
| humanist or unappreciative of the culture of art but in my
| experience people there are far more "rounded" compared to
| tech spaces, its such a culture shock.
| jorisboris wrote:
| Yes, I typed that too fast
|
| I guess "paintings" is the right word here
|
| Nevertheless the strongest association in my brain to the
| word "art" are probably paintings
| enaaem wrote:
| It's music for the eyes. Paintings don't have to be realistic.
| Abstract visuals can really tickle your brain. This can be a
| great starting point to go on a new journey and discover what
| you like.
| mekoka wrote:
| Very reminiscent of 90s video game city sceneries. Car and
| motorcycle racing games come to mind.
| zdw wrote:
| If you haven't heard of the musical genre before, here's a decent
| example:
|
| Eiichi Ohtaki - A Long Vacation -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Ox44_7puU
|
| Won best album of 1981 per the Japan Record Awards.
| __alexander wrote:
| Here is the artist's website
| http://www.hiroshinagai.com/contents.html
| owlninja wrote:
| Very interesting website as well. I like to enter throught the
| home URL:
|
| http://hiroshinagai.com/
|
| It's funny his BBS service says they were going dark in 2022. I
| was also curious how he sells things and it took some searching
| to find:
|
| http://hiroshinagai.com/fmcd/collectors/collectors_catalog/c...
|
| Or you can go to his gallery in person :)
| bartread wrote:
| My wife kindly got me two books of his art for Christmas last
| year. They took forever to arrive from Japan but very much worth
| the weight. The aesthetic is a very particular view of the 1980s
| that was also reflected in TV shows like Miami Vice, and the
| choice of palette is very ... Amiga. I wonder if the designers of
| that computer and its Workbench desktop environment were
| influenced by his use of colour.
| bitwize wrote:
| I wonder if early Sonic the Hedgehog games were influenced by
| his art. The beaches, cityscapes, and palm trees all look
| similar.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Now I know where Poolsuite came from: https://poolsuite.net
|
| Warning: sound
| vunderba wrote:
| These are great pictures. I'd love to see a sequel to the old
| arcade game Out Run done in this style.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| Japanese artistic depictions of America have an interesting way
| of having an "accent" so to speak but in a manner that doesn't
| mistranslate but rather adds something unique to it. I'm reminded
| of a series of illustrations from the 1800s explaining the
| American revolution for a Japanese audience where all the
| depictions of the important historical characters look like
| traditional samurai drawings and they take on a sort of
| mythological character to them. Its like different enough to
| appreciate that its different while also familiar enough to
| understand what its saying.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/woqaku/the_fully_s...
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Nagai's work is really interesting for the feeling it produces. I
| first came across it on subreddits dedicated to imagery of
| liminal spaces[0], which several of his pieces can be classified
| as.
|
| Some of Edward Hopper's pieces give off similar vibes despite
| coming from an entirely different era and background.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminal_space_(aesthetic)
| magic_hamster wrote:
| Imagine seeing Hiroshi Nagai on HN! He's one of my favorite
| artists. As far as I know, his son sells prints out of various
| locations in Tokyo, and keeps hopping around. It takes some
| effort to find him but when you do, the prints are not too
| expensive. I like to imagine it's a "show us you really want this
| art" thing, but not in terms of money.
| pierrec wrote:
| Hah! If you want to step into a Hiroshi Nagai painting as a 3D
| world, that's basically what happens in my Ambient Garden
| project. In fact I was surprised that nobody ever pointed it out
| despite all the visitors: https://ambient.garden/
|
| Editing to respond to multiple replies: Yes, he's painted a
| series of landscapes with that specific pointillism technique.
| The best I could find is a pretty random link, but it might be
| the most relevant painting: https://fortinbrah.wordpress.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/06/...
| garciansmith wrote:
| The dots make that site look very pointillist to me, and the
| colors are pretty impressionistic too. And it's just paths
| through a hilly landscape with trees as far as I can tell, none
| of the beaches or architectural and urban settings in Hiroshi
| Nagai's paintings. Maybe I'm missing something though.
| greggsy wrote:
| This is more impressionist pointillist than Nagai's airbrush
| style.
| arcticfox wrote:
| Excellent, edit, that painting looks almost exactly like your
| world to me. Very cool project.
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